


Take that frown and break it

by inanhourofdreaming



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 16:28:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17666054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inanhourofdreaming/pseuds/inanhourofdreaming
Summary: Another way Jack and Mac could have met, this time in a bar. AU.





	Take that frown and break it

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really have time to be writing but here I am. Title from Tom Waits _I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You_

Jack tipped the shot glass back and felt the tequila burn down his throat. He had three more days before he shipped out again and he was planning on using most of them to drink his weight in liquor and maybe take home a pretty face or two. He’s starting to feel old, even though by objective standards he knows 32 ain’t old. But the CIA wasn’t an easy life to be a part of, as much as he had fun with it, and he hadn’t exactly ended that particular career on what one might call a high note. 

Still. Alcohol can clear even the biggest of regrets for a while, and a pretty face doubly so. The benefit of a big city is a lot of transient faces, his own included. Jack’s fit, he knows it. Charming, when he wants to be, which is usually. And also very aware that the kind of behavior he’d been able to pull off in the CIA, where flexible sexuality could be a benefit to an undercover op, wouldn’t fly so well in another tour with the army. So maybe he’s looking for his last rites the only way he knows how, which is why he’s sitting in a bar where people of the more masculine persuasion wouldn’t think twice about letting him buy them a drink. 

The place isn’t outwardly much to look at. Lord knows there are far more flamboyant places to go here, if that’s what he was looking for. But Jack knows the benefits of plausible deniability and this place, grungy as it is, can give him that. 

He’s about to wave the bartender over for another shot, his fourth of the night, when he spots a kid across the bar. He couldn't have been here long. Jack would have noticed. He’s young. Maybe too young to be here, but Jack’s long since lost the ability to figure out a person’s age just by looking at them. They’ve all started to look young to him. The fresh recruits, barely 18, make him feel a little sick to his stomach nowadays, despite knowing he’d been one himself at that age. 

This guy doesn’t look as young as that, but only just. Fresh-faced, golden haired. College student, maybe. Probably not from around here. He’s got that blonde look only farmers from the midwest and beach boys from California come to naturally. He’s drawing eyes from around the bar but he doesn’t seem to really notice it. He’s looking at his phone, frowning as he types rapidly. Jack wonders if maybe he doesn’t realize what kind of bar he’s ended up in. It’s all sorts that come here, sure, but the kid wouldn’t be the first college co-ed to find this place by accident and leave just as quickly. 

The kid gives his phone one more glare and then puts it away and looks up. 

Jack doesn’t believe in love at first sight. Honestly, Jack’s not sure what definition of love he  _ does _ believe in, short of thinking maybe people fall into and out of each other all the time and it may be real, but that don’t mean it lasts. 

He’d almost believe it now, though. The kid meets his eyes and freezes. Jack’s not being subtle, checking him out, and he figures what the hell -- guy who looks like that would be worth it. And if he’s not interested, well. There’s more tequila to be had.

Only the kid isn’t looking away. He licks his lips nervously, but then he gives a quirky little half smile. That’s a question if Jack ever saw one, and his answer to this kid could only ever be yes. So Jack lets his own smile roll slowly onto his face, warm and welcoming like a Texas spring, and nods his head towards the empty seat next to him. 

The kid sucks in a deep, fortifying breath, like he’s psyching himself up, and then walks briskly over. This kid knows what kind of bar he’s in, but Jack thinks maybe it’s the first time he’s actually been in one. The kid stops next to Jack but then looks unsure, like maybe he’s second guessing Jack had been gesturing at him at all. Like he’s having doubts, and that just won’t do.

“You gonna have a seat so I can buy you a drink, or would you prefer to hover?” Jack teases. “Your choice, of course, but I know which I’d prefer.”

The kid huffs, a small smile flickering on his face. He pulls the bar stool out and sits on it.

“Good choice,” Jack says. “What are you havin’?” 

“What you’re having, I think,” he says.

“That would be tequila, my friend,” Jack responds. “And your name, if you would be so inclined.”

“Mac,” he says. “You can call me Mac.”

Jack flags down the bartender and gets two more shots. The kid -- Mac -- takes it like a champ, so he figures what the hell, and gets him another. 

“You don’t want another, too?” Mac says. 

“Mac, I have had another about four times already,” Jack says. “There is charmingly buzzed, which, at this moment, I do believe I am, and there is passed out on a bar floor, which is not a place I’m primed to be just at this moment. Certainly not now that I have the benefit of your company. Besides, what kind of man would I be if I didn’t let you catch up a bit?”

Mac smiles. “Alright, fair enough.” He takes his second shot smooth as the first, and one more besides. 

Jack watches his throat move as he swallows. He’s too drunk to be too inconspicuous about it, but Mac doesn’t seem to mind. 

“This is good,” Mac says. 

“Top shelf tequila,” Jack shrugs. “No point in the bad stuff, and a hell of a hangover either way. May as well make it worth it. It’s a damn sight better than well liquor.”

“Yeah, it’s...almost sweet,” Mac says, his tongue tasting what’s left on his lips. “Definitely better than what we’ve made in the still back at…” he trails off, looks almost lost for a second.

“You got your own still?” Jack asks. He recognizes what it looks like when someone’s feeling bittersweet about where they’ve been or where they’re going. Mac has that look about him -- determination mixed with a bit of sadness, like he’s halfway out a door he’s not sure he wants to shut behind him.

“Yeah, I uh, made one,” Mac says. “Not too difficult, actually.”

“Not too difficult, he says,” Jack mimics. “What, you just looked up the directions on the internet?”

“Ah, no, actually,” Mac says. “It’s pretty simple, really. You just need a couple basic lab tools and some sugar…” and Jack watches as Mac fair as lights up as he describes the process of fermentation and how he’d designed a still that fit into a compact space and sped up the fermentation process. The kid talks for something like five or six minutes straight, jumping from chemical reactions to the unique set of insulation he’d created to accelerate the reaction. 

“Nerd,” Jack says, delighted, when Mac stops to take a breath. “Mac, you are a  _ nerd.” _

  
Mac blushes and tries to hide it, adorably, by looking away for a minute.

“Sorry,” he says, and he seems a little upset, like maybe he doesn’t realize Jack meant to compliment him. Like maybe some people have said some things before that weren’t exactly complimentary. 

“What?” Jack says. “Are you kidding? Kid, there is nothing more attractive than a man who thinks. Talk some more about chemical processes to me.”

And the thing is, Jack really  _ means _ it. The way Mac is talking, he thinks he’s probably a lot smarter than he’d want to let on. But Jack  _ loves _ brains. Nothing cranks his gears quite like competence, and for all this kid is young and unsure of himself, he is in his element when he’s talking science and engineering, and it turns Jack on something awful. 

Mac’s face is still red, but he’s looking back at Jack now, disbelieving. “You’re not serious,” he says, but he sounds unsure.

Jack leans in close, watching Mac’s pupils dilate as he does. “Mac, I am very,  _ very  _ serious.”

“You…” Mac starts, but seems like he’s totally lost his train of thought, too busy flickering his eyes to examine the bits of Jack’s face he’s seeing up close and personal. 

“Yeah?” Jack cocks his head, but doesn’t pull back more than a touch.

“But…” Mac starts again, lowly, “no one really likes to listen to me talk about that stuff. I mean, not really.”

And Jack can’t have that. Not at all.

“I do,” he says. “There is nothing I’d like more than to keep hearing you talk, Mac, just at this moment. And I can’t help but think that anyone that’s made you think you aren’t damn near the most fascinating thing in any room you’re in hasn’t got enough sense to fit on the head of a pin.”

Mac swallows and his face practically breaks with want. Christ, has no one ever told this kid what he must be worth? Jack can’t afford an attachment, not really, not now, but damn if he could, this kid would be enough to convince him. Maybe he won’t get to keep him, but he’s got two nights and three days left and he’s perfectly willing to spend every minute of them listening to Mac talk, if that’s what he wants. The way he’s looking at Jack, though, that’s not all he wants, and Jack will happily take that, too. 

“Mac,” Jack says, and his voice has dropped to a register Jack basically thinks of as foreplay. “You can say no, if you want, and I will happily spend this whole night listening to you talk. I mean that. But I would very much like to take you back with me tonight.”

Mac’s eyes are glazed over and his whole body is leaning into Jack’s like gravity is pulling him there. 

“I…” Mac says, croaking. He swallows, and starts again. “I’d really, really like that. But, uh…”

“Yeah?” Jack says.

“You, uh. You never told me your name.”

Jack laughs, breaking the tension. 

“Jack,” he says. “I’m Jack.”


End file.
